RoydadNaft –  Large listed companies — especially petrochemical producers — can import electricity from neighboring countries, Iran’s deputy energy minister for electricity said.

Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi told Radio Eqtesad that physical limits on transmission usually keep electricity trade below 10% of a country’s needs. Iran’s cross-border imports are estimated at 2% to 3%. Northern neighbors have substantial capacity for supply and exchange, Roydad Naft reported.

About 4,700 megawatts of industrial and petrochemical generation is offline for various reasons, and at most half of that is expected back by the end of the Iranian year in March 2027. To keep production lines running, the Energy Ministry has held intensive meetings with the petrochemical industry and set up a route for those plants, which have access to foreign currency, to get priority on imports from countries able to sell power.

Turkish generators have said they are ready to sell electricity directly to Iranian petrochemical companies. The Energy Ministry says it will not block the grid: imported power can move on the national network and be delivered to industry. The model has no cap, and any large, energy-intensive plant that wants to can join. Despite the constraints, the ministry said it delivered six times as much electricity to petrochemical plants this summer as in previous years.

Turkmenistan can take 2 billion kilowatt-hours a year from Iran, and an extension for next year is due to be finalized soon. Third and fourth transmission lines are planned. Turkmenistan has chosen the contractor for the third line; the fourth is in engineering design.

Iran-Armenia electricity trade is on a similar scale to Turkmenistan, and a third line between the two countries is due in service within a year. Turkey has built infrastructure that can import and export at about twice Turkmenistan’s capacity and is expected to be the main axis of petrochemical power-purchase contracts.

At summer peak, Iran imported 150 to 200 megawatts from Azerbaijan. A longer-term electrical link for 1,000 megawatts of exchange with Russia is also being pursued.

Exports to Afghanistan and Pakistan together run at about 200 megawatts. Trade with Iraq has been stopped for more than a year because of sanctions and financial barriers.